Tag: #affordability

My mother has always said to me; “The world is a dark and beautiful place, one of which you’re too curious to not explore”. I have always been so curious about the history of places, knowing that at some point in history, someone was standing exactly where I am, with problems foreign to my own and living in a complete different society that I am living in today. I have travelled to 3 different countries and will be travelling to 9 new countries in the middle of this year, so I thought; ‘Why not base my project around it?’

After booking this trip I have had many people asking which organs I’m selling in order to pay for it. Being a student it can be difficult trying to figure out how to pay for a trip. We all save our money for something, so why not travel?

Over the summer I worked 2 part-time jobs which ended up tallying up to 55-60 hours a week just so that I could pay for my trip overseas. I’m not suggesting that doing this is ideal for everyone, most of the time I would fall asleep in one uniform, just to wake up the next morning at 4:00am to change into a different one. I may have hated myself each time I finish work at midnight just to start at 6:00am the next morning but I managed to pay off my trip in less than 3 months! So, it’s possible, why aren’t more people doing it?

My proposal is, is what is the future of travel for students? Is it because of the endless pile of HECS and other expenses that students need to account for weekly, the reason behind why young students (18-25) aren’t travelling overseas during their time at university?

According to the graph below from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, indicating the short-term residential departures of both males and females in 2006 compared to 2016. It displays that amongst the 20-24 age group, more females are travelling than males.

(source: abs.gov.au)

‘In the year ended December 2016, there were 37.7 million crossings of Australia’s international borders’. (ABS 2016) This projection includes people who were returning home from Australia after a short term or long term stay and also includes Australian citizens departing for short and long term stays overseas.

The questions that I want answered are:

Is money the main issue why student’s aren’t travelling overseas?

Are the anxieties and stresses that studying full time provides stopping students from wanting to travel overseas during their time at university?

Are our elders influential on whether or not we travel overseas?

Are societal expectations of ‘all study no play’ effecting students views on travelling?

Are the lack of jobs available and the wage rate for young adults one of the reasons behind student’s not travelling?

I look forward to discovering reasons why student’s are postponing travel and whether they even intend on travelling at all.